A Venezuelan mother and her young daughter survived a deadly shipwreck off Nicaragua, spending hours stranded at sea before they were rescued. Less than two years later, they were separated after immigration agents detained the mother in Texas.
Dicarla Antonela Suarez Vargas, 34, and her daughter, Aranza Sofia Castillo Suarez, were among the survivors of a December 23, 2023 shipwreck near Corn Islands, Nicaragua. The vessel was traveling from San Andrés, Colombia, toward Corn Island when it sank about five nautical miles southeast of the island, according to a Nicaraguan Army press release.
"They believed they could die and experienced a tragedy in which other passengers lost their lives," Kissy Suarez, Dicarla Antonela Suarez Vargas' sister, told Newsweek in an exclusive statement.
The Nicaraguan Army said its Naval Force launched a search-and-rescue operation after receiving reports of the shipwreck. Local fishing boats helped rescue 10 survivors. The authorities recovered the bodies of two Venezuelan passengers who had drowned, including a 4-year-old girl, Nicaraguan authorities said.
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The family said Dicarla Antonela Suarez Vargas and Aranza Sofia Castillo Suarez, who was 7 at the time, spent approximately 10 to 11 hours stranded in the water before being rescued. The family said the pair were trying to reach the United States when the boat sank off the coast of Nicaragua.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) told Newsweek that the mother "illegally entered the country with her daughter in May 2024 near El Paso, Texas, whereupon she admitted to officers of illegal drug use."
The pair later came to the United States and settled in Dallas, where Dicarla Antonela Suarez Vargas worked and Aranza Sofia Castillo Suarez attended school. The family said they presented themselves to immigration authorities at the southern border, were processed and subsequently released while their immigration proceedings continued.
On September 8, 2025, Dicarla Antonela Suarez Vargas went to what her family described as a routine immigration check-in and was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). She has remained in immigration detention for more than a year.
President Donald Trump’s sweeping mass-deportation campaign has fueled a new wave of family separations, with parents detained or deported while their children remain in the United States. A May 2026 analysis by the Brookings Institution estimated that approximately 205,000 children had "likely experienced" the detention of a parent since Trump returned to the White House.
DHS said Aranza Sofia Castillo Suarez was placed with a relative "as per ICE policy" and that Dicarla Antonela Suarez Vargas would remain in ICE custody pending removal proceedings.
"ICE does not separate families," a DHS spokesperson said. "Parents are asked if they want to be removed with their children or ICE will place the children with a safe person the parent designates. This is consistent with past administrations' immigration enforcement."
Dicarla Antonela Suarez Vargas' family said she has no criminal record, criminal charges, or previous arrests. DHS did not say in its statement that she had been convicted of a crime.
An immigration judge ordered Dicarla Antonela Suarez Vargas removed on January 28, 2026, according to the family. Her attorneys subsequently challenged her detention in federal court, filing a habeas corpus petition in the Southern District of Texas on March 26. She is being held at the Laredo Processing Center, the family said.
Axel Rojas, a close friend of the family, created a GoFundMe to help cover legal expenses.
"I believe this situation is deeply unfair," Rojas told Newsweek. "More than anything, I hope Dicarla receives fair treatment and that she and Sofia can finally be reunited."
Before her detention, Dicarla Antonela Suarez Vargas supported her family through several jobs in the Dallas area, including hotel and food-service work, her sister said.
"She organized her life around taking care of Sofia," Kissy Suarez said. "She took her to school, picked her up, cared for her after school, and worked different jobs to support them."
For the mother and daughter, the stakes extend beyond the outcome of an immigration case. They survived a shipwreck while trying to reach the United States, a journey in which other passengers died. After eventually reaching the country, they built a life together in Dallas, where Suarez Vargas worked and Sofia attended school.
Now, roughly three years after the shipwreck, Suarez Vargas remains detained and under an order of removal. It leaves it uncertain whether mother and daughter will be able to remain together in the country they took such extraordinary risks to reach.
"She had already experienced the trauma of surviving a shipwreck alongside her mother when she was 7 years old," Kissy Suarez said. "She has now endured a prolonged separation from that same parent. It has been incredibly difficult emotionally for both Sofia and Dicarla."
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Matthew Cannon and James Debens